textproduct: Amarillo

KEY MESSAGES

Issued at 1141 PM CDT Fri May 22 2026

- Another round of thunderstorms will be possible Saturday afternoon/evening. A severe potential (5%) will exist for damaging winds and large hail.

-There will be a potential for thunderstorms each day through the coming period. The extent and severity is expected to change from day to day.

SHORT TERM

(Tonight through Sunday night) Issued at 1141 PM CDT Fri May 22 2026

This past evening, moisture advection over performed a bit allowing some scattered storms become severe with increased instability. Going into today, another upper level disturbance is progged to come across the combined Panhandles aiding in additional thunderstorm development. The severe potential will depend on the recovery of the environment and how long showery type activity last this morning. Also, some low clouds may develop right around sunrise, mainly in the south central to southeastern TX Panhandle. Afternoon temperatures are expected to be a bit cooler with partly to mostly cloudy skies and upsloping easterly winds through the day. This may hinder surface based CAPE and eliminate some of the severe potential. However, MLCAPE will still be up near 300 to 500 J/Kg and may see a brief moment where storms tap into surface based CAPE (1500 J/Kg) before totally becoming elevated. Storm mode is expected to be mainly linear with a line coming in from the northwest first. This line is then expected to merge with scattered storms from the south, eventually becoming more of a complex as it gets to the southeastern TX Panhandle.

Overall, the severe threat is looking to remain damaging winds and large hail. Especially initially where storms could be more discrete further west in NE NM. Or if storms can initiate off of a remnant outflow boundary especially across the southern TX Panhandle down into West Texas. Once the storms can become outflow dominate the threat for wind is likely to diminish and once storms become elevated, may not have enough instability to produce hail as shear will be dropping further east into the area. Once the complex forms later in the evening will have to watch overall rainfall rates and the speed of the system. Cannot rule out some isolated flooding issues in the southeast TX Panhandle at this time, but not expecting it either.

For Sunday, mid to upper level ridging will return with afternoon highs progged to return into the mid to upper 80s. Thunderstorm chances will be present on Sunday again. This time around 20 to maybe 40 PoPs in the west. The western Panhandles will have the best H7 theta-e advection and storms may only get going if a perturbation in the flow aloft can help initiate the storms. Therefore, storms are dependent on a dirty ridge for Sunday afternoon/evening and generally limited to the western combined Panhandles.

LONG TERM

(Monday through next Friday) Issued at 1141 PM CDT Fri May 22 2026

Monday, an upper level ridge sticks around for a bit longer with afternoon highs reaching the upper 80s to lower 90s. PoPs will begin to increase in the afternoon Monday to around 15 to 30 in the western combined Panhandles. This will be thanks to an approaching H5 trough. Depending on how this system evolves, looking at 20 pops in the central combined Panhandles to 50 PoPs in the west going into Monday night. Deterministic models are not in that good of agreement, therefore there remains some uncertainty to the how much rain will be possible Monday night.

A fairly robust mid to upper level low is expected to evolve and dive down the western coastal states Tuesday. This system is expected to help send more ripples through the southwest flow of the aforementioned trough and increase rain chances Tuesday afternoon into the overnight ours. Current NBM PoPs stand around 60 to 80 during this period. With getting into that time of year, cannot rule out severe thunderstorms but it is difficult to fully assess the extent of severity at this time.

The rest of the long term will be looking at similar conditions in with afternoon highs in the 80s and afternoon/evening thunderstorm chances. Current NBM PoPs in the extended beyond Tue are around 20 to 30 with mainly eastern portions of the Panhandles affected.

AVIATION

(12Z TAFS) Issued at 620 AM CDT Sat May 23 2026

As of this morning, present radar was continuing to see showers with embedded thunderstorms develop across the Northern Panhandles. This activity is occasionally bringing minor impacts to both KGUY and KDHT, though usually only in the vicinity of the two terminals. This activity should quite down as we head into the later morning with conditions becoming VFR at all terminals by the afternoon package. However, another round of storms is expected later this evening with latest CAMs see all terminals have some form of brief impact by tonight. Currently CAMs have storms arrive at KDHT the earliest at around 00Z, with KAMA and KGUY following only a couple hours later. However, with still ongoing activity present, confidence in this new activity has not been great. For now, have left mention of the potential activity as Prob30 for this current package.

AMA WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

TX...None. OK...None.